


"dating"

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They aren’t dating: a timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"dating"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shihadchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/gifts).



> Written as a sixteenwins forfeit for shihadchick because I made my Stanley Cup predictions using my feelings instead of logic, which meant the Blackhawks couldn’t make it out of the first round. 
> 
> Betaed by Stellarer, who even caught me misspelling her username while writing this note. SHE IS THE BEST. I would be utterly incoherent without her.

**2003-04**

Dating? Ew. Why would John want to date anyone? There are better things to do, like play hockey. There’s a lot of hockey to play, the organized kind, and the better, funner kind, where it’s just him and Sam on the rink in Sam’s backyard. They stay out until after dark, until their fingers feel frozen, and they can’t feel their toes. They make up new games, arguing over the rules, competing against each other for bragging rights. It can get heated. They shove against each other, and tumble down to the ice. Why would John want to “date” when he could be playing hockey with his best friend? That’s just stupid.

**2006-07**

There isn’t time for dating, there’s only time for hockey, food, sleep, and school work. Trying to do anything else sounds exhausting.

John doesn’t understand how some of the guys on his team manage to date anyone. They’re a couple of years older than him, but it isn’t like they have more free time. Yet somehow, they make it work. Mostly his teammates will date girls from school. They sit next together at lunch, and the girls come to home games and all sit in the same row. And John guesses that’s kind of cool. But they have practice, and away games, and other stuff, so they’re almost always busy. Trying to balance school and hockey is enough work, John doesn’t know how he would add dating to the mix. 

If John was dating someone, he would want to be able to spend a lot of time with them. He can’t imagine that his teammates have much time to do things their girlfriends want to do, to go to the activities they’re involved in. That doesn’t seem fair, but the girls must not mind. If they did they wouldn’t be dating hockey players.

John calls Sam to talk about it. They talk at least once a week, sometimes more if something is worth talking about. Sam’s busy playing hockey too, much too busy to date. He can say it better than John; he’s a year and a quarter older, so it makes sense that he knows more about these things.

“Like, if you’re going to date you should do it properly,” Sam says. “It seems like people are ‘dating’ so they can hook up, which is pointless. If they want to hook up, they just should. The idea that it’s like, classier, or better, or whatever if you give each other flowers first is dumb. Not that I have anything against flowers, or being romantic, or whatever, but it should be because you want to give someone flowers, not because you want to get in their pants.”

John nods, then remembers that Sam can’t see him over the phone, and makes a quiet noise of agreement.

“You and me have got it right to stay out of the whole mess,” Sam says.

John agrees.

“But I guess if there was someone I really wanted to date it wouldn’t matter, right?” Sam hypotheses. “If there was someone totally awesome it wouldn’t matter if we never had enough time together. But I don’t see how I could get to know someone enough to like them that much.”

“Yeah,” John agrees. He’s good at making new friends, but they don’t mean as much. They may be teammates now, but they might not be next year, or even next week. He could meet someone he wants to date, but he would want to learn all about them, and there isn’t really time. It would be a lot easier if he could just date someone where they already know everything important about each other, but the only person he has that with is Sam, and they’re just friends.

**2010-11**

Dating makes it sound a lot more serious than they are. They’re friends and they hook up when they happen to be in the same place, which isn’t very often. That’s all.

It starts because Sam kisses him, which happens awkwardly and unexpectedly over the summer. John doesn’t know why it happens when it does. They aren’t drunk, just a little bit buzzed, hanging out at the lake. Sam kisses him, and John pulls away because he doesn’t know what’s happening. Sam doesn’t say anything, and the silence is sharp enough to cut someone, and John wants it to end. Sam just kissed him. And John doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind kissing Sam, it’s just that it was unexpected. But kissing isn’t a half-bad idea. So he leans forward, and puts his mouth over his best friend’s, and it isn’t silent anymore, there’s the wet sound of their kisses, and someone moans, John can’t tell if it’s him.

So that happens. And it keeps happening. And that’s cool, because they’re friends, and they care about each other, and they’re good at sex, but they aren’t dating. Hell, they aren’t even talking about it. It’s just a thing that they do sometimes.

**2012**

If they knew what they were doing then maybe you could call it dating.

They spend a lot of the summer together, but they’ve always done that. They’re sleeping together, but that isn’t new. It’s small, silly things that suggest dating, things they aren’t doing on purpose and aren’t talking about.

Like how Sam’s shirts keep on ending up in John’s dirty laundry. And John will wash them, and fold them, and set them on the bench by the door, hoping that Sam will remember to take them home with him the next time he’s around. Sam never remembers. Sometimes he’ll remember they’re there, and put one of those on the next day if he slept over, but it seems like he also likes to steal John’s clothes too. The pile of clothes grows taller and taller as the summer goes on. By the middle of July it’s about to fall over, and John gives in and clears out a shelf in his closet for Sam’s things. They don’t talk about. That might ruin it. They aren’t dating, but whatever they are doing is really great. John doesn’t want to fuck around with that by talking about it. 

**2013**

There isn’t time. The short season is compressed, forty-eight games in ninety-nine days. How the hell are they supposed to “date” through that? They’re living in different time zones, playing in different conferences. They won’t have a chance to see each other until April, at the earliest, which is the worst case scenario. Dating sounds impossible.

The thing to do this year is live their lives the way they always have before this season and evaluate the other options once they get a chance to breathe. John can focus on the team, doing everything in his power to drag the Islanders up the standings. He’s aware that Sam’s trying to do the same thing in Edmonton and having far less success, but he can’t worry about that. He has his own life to think about, one which, due to logistical constraints, can’t involve Sam as much as he wishes it could. Maybe there is some kind of life that involves the two of them being together that they can plan for later, but all John can do right now is face what’s directly ahead of him, which doesn’t involve dating at all.

**2015-16**

To say they’re “dating” makes it sound like they aren’t serious, but they are.

They’ve talked about it extensively. They’re interested in a serious, monogamous partnership. Partners, that’s the word they’re using, not boyfriends. Partners implies permanency and commitment. They’re together, for good. Dating seems like something that happens before this, something that they skipped.

Maybe that’s too bad, but it’s too late to go back now. John thinks he might have enjoyed the awkward eager courtship phase, but they’re way past it now. They had been friends for too long, they were already comfortable showing off their flaws by the time they finally got together. They never tried to impress each other, they already knew what they were signing up for. Really, they’re lucky to have skipped the whole audition of “dating,” jumping ahead to something more stable.

**2017-18**

Dating makes it sound like they’re people who go on dates, which they aren’t. They thought it would be better now that they’re both on the East Coast, and it is, but it still isn’t easy. There’s a house in Long Island that they both come home to, but the Islanders’ and the Devils’ schedules don’t match up very well. They have long overlapping road trips, so sometimes it seems like they’re never at home at the same time, which gets frustrating. 

John has had this house for years, and he’s lived here with other people before, but it isn’t the same as living with Sam. Sam’s things are everywhere. Sam’s bad at remembering to switch the laundry or start the dishwasher. His bodywash is next to John’s on the shelf in the shower. Both of the sinks in the master bedroom have stuff around them now, John’s neatly positioned, Sam’s more haphazardly cluttered. Sam will leave things he needs to remember to bring with on the road in piles on the stairs which John inevitably almost trips over. It isn’t frustrating at all. John loves it so fucking much. Maybe eventually it will get annoying, but right now having reminders of Sam’s presence everywhere is amazing. It kind of sucks that he’s only going to see Sam for three days in the next two weeks, but that’s a whole lot better than the zero days they got last year. And he’ll see Sam’s things everywhere, every day, reminding him that they have a home together.

Maybe they don’t go on dates like other couples, but they’re good at being domestic. They don’t need to go out, they don’t want to go out, they don’t have to go on dates; they’re happy the way they are.

**2026**

They have a date. It’s circled on the calendar, the only thing scheduled for the month of July. They’ve sent out save the date announcements, so it’s too late to cancel. John doesn’t know why they would want to; he wants to get married. There are still a lot of things that have to get figured out. They have to form opinions about flowers, or find someone willing to have opinions for them. There are invitations to mail, and a cake to agree upon. But there’s a date that John can point to and say, _after that day we’ll be married. After that date Sam will be my husband. From that date on, and every day after it he’ll be mine, and I’ll be his, legally, for the rest of our lives._ They have a date, that’s really all they need.

**2045**

Annie says it’s super gross that her dads still “go out on dates.” She’s at an age where she wants to be going on dates. Her dads going on dinner-dates makes it uncool.

John doesn’t get it. This isn’t dating, it’s just eating dinner. Eating dinner with his husband is normal. He has no idea why Annie would find this embarrassing.

She says they don’t get to go on dates, because they’ve been together for such a long time. “Dating is something special. It’s about getting to know someone,” she says, with the all knowing wisdom of a sixteen year old girl with subscriptions to multiple beauty webmags. “You’ve been together _forever,_ and you’ve known each other for even longer than that, so it isn’t dating. It’s just weird. It’s just weird old-man dinner and mushy looks time, not dating.”

Sam thinks her indignation is _hilarious,_ and that they should use it as an excuse to go out more often.

John still doesn’t like the idea of his eldest daughter dating. He would be comfortable living in a date-free household, where no one goes on dates with anyone, and they all stay home as a family every night to eat dinner and play cards. He knows that isn’t possible, but he can dream.

“I don’t know why she’s so excited. It isn’t like she doesn’t go to movies with her friends. Or we could take her to the movies.”

“Let her do the normal teenage thing. Maybe it’s fun, I don’t know, we didn’t really do it.”

“And that worked out fine!”

“Well, yeah, but we were weird kids. Going to the movies with a boy from her geometry class isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

It might. That’s what John’s afraid of.

“Besides,” Sam says, “we were already more or less dating when we were her age,.”

“We were?” John doesn’t remember this, but it was a long time ago.

“Oh yeah. We were basically dating since forever. It took us a really long time to figure out what we were doing, but we were dating. Totally dating.”

“Really? I never realized that.”

“Seriously?” Sam seems shocked. “You thought we somehow got together, and got married, and have stayed together all this time without actually dating?”

“I guess. I mean, I understand how we got together, but I don’t know if I’d call any of it dating.”

“So basically I started dating you and you just...went along with it.” Sam’s grinning at him, at how silly the they are. “You’re lucky I love you, because you’re ridiculous.”

That’s really true. “I’m so lucky that you love me. I’m the luckiest. And I love you too.”

Sam smiles and nods. 

“So, if Annie’s going to the movies with that boy on Friday, do you want to go on a date with me?” John asks.

“Well, sure. I mean, it’s about time.”


End file.
